i have never seen my dad's uniform.

does he slip into
a suite of blown glass
or does he swaddle himself
in lace? in the backyard
there is a manhole cover 
he will climb into while no one
is looking. my father is 
a hell-worker. he won't tell us
what he does. 
the corners of his clothes 
return singed & in tatters.
creases of his hands
full of soot & ash. i used to want
to go down there with him
& work alongside all the men
in my very own secret uniform.
maybe an old diver's suite.
all metal & fortress. a tube trailing
to feed me air from above.
sometimes, dad will tell me
i must not ever work 
in a place like him. 
i have searched his closet
for his secrets & never found
the uniform: rows of old 
thread-bare t-shirts. i do not dare
ask him where he keeps it. 
instead, i will build him a better one.
i am testing out materials still.
maybe thousands of pennies maybe
an arce of lilac maybe hair 
maybe horse hooves. i keep
all these suites in a secret closet
where no one can see them.
one day the uniform 
will be ready & i will dress my father
while he sleeps & his skin will
not longer burn & his body
will no longer age.
until then, he will have a secret
from me. his uniform sleeps 
somewhere in this house.

i no longer need to sleep

i play soccer with a ghost
in the big empty field. 
my legs turn to rabbits & a burrow
opens in the grass. 
you were busy with the blow torch
when i told you i felt an aparition 
at the school yard. you told me
to go ahead without you
so i road a donkey made of ice
through yard after yard,
stopping to graze on glass.
there is scar tissue in my throat.
do you remember the time
you put your hand around my throat?
all those little bones.
you never want to come with me
when i go to visit a spector.
the ball is a head of cabbage.
at the center of any leafy green
in a single tooth you've been missing.
we break a window in god's house,
the ghost & i. the ghost 
died of unnatural causes--
he fell off the side of a ghost
& just plumetted until
he struck the earth & burst
into a maple tree. now he plays soccer
with other lost boys.
you are busy with your own teeth
& a razor. the moon goes grapefruit heavy.
i want to catch it but it will
crush me like a spider beneath 
a thumb. the ghost & i are scared
of bringing the sky down on top of us.
you lay in bed, knitting a corset 
to wrap me in. what kind of ghosts
do you play with when i'm not around?
i let him make a few goals.
he lets me run the length 
of the field with my reptile knees.
he tells me what it's like
to live as a tree. he knows so much
about the wind. i do not miss you.
most nights i could go without
a minute of sleep. i am going to
stay awake for the rest of my life
& you will turn the pages of books
propped up against a year's worth
of pillows. am i your ghost then?
when you touch me, does your hand
make contact with skin?
i come back to my room,
sweat sticking shirt to skin.
you are not there at all.
in your place is just a mound
of rodent teeth & a feather.
i warned myself against
loving but here you quiver
in my memory. there are so many 
soccer fields open at night.
will you stalk one with me?
i want to be your ghost.
i leave all the lights on
in my mouth. you will know
by the orange glow
where to come back to me.

self portrait as American Gothic 

you & i hung a tiny window
in the attic & asked the light 
to walk through walls. draped
star-covered clothe across glass.  
whose faces
are these? my gender 
has a wife. i want to be sturdy.
we laugh into paper bags
& save our joy for the winter 
when even the field has no teeth.
ten years ago was a bad harvest
& i still remember raking
bare dirt. we ate
sharing the same spoon.
i tied her shoes & she tied mine.
car won't start so i reach
my hand into the beast.
knick my knuckles on gears
& smudge corners of my bones.
she wonders to the barn 
where we rumor an owl is perched.
she says, "who who?"
to call the bird but nothing comes.
a stray cat mews 
& vanishes into the hay.
i come out to join her.
a sunset is on its way 
like a lesion or a bruise.
my thighs are heavy 
with rubble. her face
a sundial in the dark. 
we stand a foot or so apart 
& say nothing. soon, night 
pickles our tongues. 
the stalks of corn in the field
hush hush hush & she stays
while i go inside, still clutching
my implement. i think of devils
& their pitch forks.
i wonder where in my body
all my evil lays dormant.
i pray to god 
to make us worthy people.
my hands ache. i light a candle
in the living room
& wait for her to come inside.

several parades you asked for

we looked at 
leashes in the pet store.
some leashes
the length of our bodies. some leashes 
for snakes 
& several leashes for humans. some for tying
to tree branches
& teaching them to amble. 
a willow tree has a waltz-like step.
i use my phone speaker
to play radio loud for us.
we dance, stepping in & out
of leashes. 
you want to walk your rose bush 
up & down the street 
to make your neighbor jealous.
we put collars on our wrists.
one is big enough
to choke a planet. the midday moon
is water bright. we buy
leashes of all sizes. we buy 
several collars. you tell me 
you have been wanting
to make a parade. there are wovles
all over town & now
we can catch one. we freeze tag run
& catch one. a great huge wolf
with snarling joints.
it walks between us. at home,
we aren't sure what to do with it.
the wolf stares & stare.
you say you had just wanted
to walk a rose bush &
look what i made us do.
the wolf does not sleep
so we take turns staying up
to watch the animal. it doesn't blink.
we put leashes on each other.
finally the wolf becomes 
a dead tree. a fallen log
in the middle of the hallway.
we step over it to go back to bed.
i leash the ceiling fan 
& you leash the pillow. i ask
if we can walk tomorrow
across the sidewalk 
with all our pets. you say
you don't know if it's safe anymore.
once you're asleep
i put a collar around
each ankle & each wrist.
i wait for you to wake up
& make a thicket of me. i want
to be pulled across a terrain.
landscape me. the mountain
swallows a knot of cloud.
you roll over & over.
a collar glimmers 
underneath your skin.

intrusive thoughts

i am a collage-rupture of doors. 
most days, my thoughts crowd
& collect elbow.
a wind tunnel.
a tuning fork. i cut my tongue
on a gust of air. he used to reach
for the door knob 
at the back of my throat. 
open. out comes another thrust.
a dead railroad overlooks the town.
did i say "thrust"?
i meant thrist. 
water is always
rushing away from 
pinnacle. what does
a goldfish taste like? how easy
would it be to jump over
cliffside. this is not my idea.
a serpent openned me 
& whispered. trees fall over
rotten amidst the forest
& no one mourns them. forget
about hearing. sound is 
a lush fallacy. 
maybe there are unseen funerals.
a thought rides a bicycle 
into a brick wall. my father
ties a knot 
around my wrist.
he crushed-orange breaks nose.
listen to me, 
nothing i tell you
& everything i tell you 
has happened.
i am a living parcing. this or that.
believe your eyelashes 
or pluck them out.
keep your porches eager
or take a hammer to them.
if you wait for me,
i have a whole row of teeth
i want to show you. light pressed
to a pupil. puddle swelling
with storm water. grey leaking
up through floor boards. 
a heart breaking into hydrangea:
cotton candy & blue. 
my last bruise
was a continent & all the people
tried to drown themselves 
in the surf of my skin.
i saved them with a scoop
of my hand. where are they now?
carn horns in clouds. 
the hallway is long & endless.
i want a passcode
to the fracture where
all these images errupt from.
a safe box shutters 
in the basement. i have
three fingers. i have six.
i have a hand down my throat.
i have a bedroom 
with one window.

lingual heredity 

my dad carries a tape recorded hymn
into the ceiling. an attic is an attic
is an attic. where did you learn
to quaver? angels are no trust worthy
even when they offer you 
light white cake. i wear
a fork around my neck. 
a bell rung upside down
is no longer a bell. dad harmonizes 
without a tongue. i open a box
of spiders on the porch & they crawl
down my throat. light campfires
all up my esophagus. one of them
is my dad. the sky scraper
burns: a statue
of the god we don't talk about.
manhole cover openning to reveal
an unblinking eye. pigs hold truths
in their skin & their hooves.
they stalk alleyways in search
of a morsel. are you 
my dad? are you? he makes puppets 
from the altar boy robes. a cord 
is easily tied tighter. 
for years i was held together
with only cords. one for each wrist.
dad assembles a mass 
for his teeth.
presses play on the tape recorder
& out comes a rusted warble.
all the doors in my house
turn into bat wings.
if we don't pin the attic down
it will surely slip away.
i pick up large rocks. 
look for dad underneath. he is 
a grub & a salamander.
his tap recorder stuck
to the ceiling of my kitchen
trying to catch my voice.
if he gets your voice 
it's over. he will find 
a nice vase for you.
i was a lily once & my face
fell apart petal by petal.
i rotted from the stem 
to the roof of my mouth. i love 
my dad very much. he is 
a good dad & leaves me
packages on the porch.
i open with caution. 
(yes, the spiders). once
he gave me all the love
i wanted & i wept until 
my bones turned to salt. 
now, there is mass to be held
& a finger to put
to my lips. my tongue
is gone & in its place
a bell clapper.

jonny appleseed 

we went apple picking 
on the bottom of a glass bottle.
planets took turns
blowing on the rim. a bird
died & turned into a fresh tree.
encyclopedias collapsed into each other
until we only had five words left
& they were all the names of apples.
boys are all made of branches. girls are all
made of soot. i was somewhere inbetween.
a root burned in me. a twisting.
when we kissed i got smoke in your mouth.
holding hands is like becoming
a chainlink fence. tell me about
your favorite parameter. mine is 
the edge where the orchard becomes 
a regular forest. there is a glass between 
fruit & wild wooden areas. i loved you more
when we were a few feet apart--
when we were stepping
in mucky apple carcasses at the tree's feet.
i dreamed of all the little amber seeds 
with their knees tucked into their chests.
i wanted only mcintosh & you wanted
the goldens. a slipping in our ankles.
picking & picking. filling basket after basket.
i said do you think that's enough
but it only came out mcintosh?
you nodded, thinking i meant yes more. 
piles of apples. we could never eat
so many fruit. you were tired of me 
i knew. i was sorry for all the flesh
& the burning. a little column of smoke lifted
from the lip of the bottle. we held hands 
picking picking. a stem is 
a neck. a trunk is a neck.
we picked every single apple. 
not one remained. you fed me one
& i fed you. juice down me chin.
you said gala & winesap. i said cameo.
fingers through my hair. all the branches 
in you bearing fruit. i pinked them off 
your arms. all love is meant 
to clatter. a dusk poured 
from the skin of 
a particularly large apple.
you feel asleep 
& the bottle slinked away. 
i carry a pouch of seeds
& left you there.

gulping 

more than i can manage.
ears as acoyte bells. i ring
tuesday's doorbell & wait for the sun.
arriving is a series of stoops.
concrete hardens into the cast
of a poet's face. my uncle plays pacman 
in the corner of a dead pizzaria.
he is full of quarters. 
i peel back my skin
to find a swarm of beetles. shiny back.
all gems are just insects 
with their legs pluck off 
by miners. a shaft is waiting
in the basement. 
i take a fork & a spoon
& wittle away at the earth.
dirt tastes like autumn. the seasons 
have given up on me. it is just
summer summer summer. a tulip
where the light bulb should be. 
the sound of losing the video game.
my uncle with his huge coarse hands
& a joystick toggling. i have 
seven knees & five eyes. 
a blinking aches 
in my joints. who is going to change
the last light bulb? who is going
to unhinge sigh from his teeth.
i want a new finger to press
to the roof if the animal's mouth.
my vocabulary isn't strong enough
to tell you how the basement hurts.
remove the tooth & burry it.
we need more trees. how long will it take
for the seed to sprout. red leaves.
vein stem. the earth's core
is full of blood; hot & stewing.
somewhere the tea leaves are read 
& suggest death. a tarot card is pulled
that means no one 
is going to sleep tonight.
i try to swallow a pencil but it gets stuck
& not a ghost writes poems 
in my throat. who will become 
a planet? who will unknot the necks 
of trees from one another? 
a bird is taking up oil paints.
i am the bird & there is no canvas
just a blank wall in my house 
that has been staring at me.
i need to cover it's sixteen eyes.
maybe we were all angels 
& then we were banished. i once
touched a boy's back & felt 
where his wings used to be.
i once swallowed a boy & the next day
spat a tangle of ivy out 
into the backyard. it is still
working its way up the mountain.
the planets roll down hill
& nestle with each other.
i turn a light out & cradle
my extra three eyes in the dark
before placing each in my mouth
one by one.

july will be full of pixels.

square raindrops are falling
to the green. when i cross the street
god holds his remote controller 
as if he's playing frogger. 
i have three more life tokens
& they glitter in the corners 
of my vision. a hoard of moths
is always ready to fight me.
i smash a beetle into the wall
with my thumb as if it's a big red button.
any room can be a puzzle.
i feel along the floor 
for a loose board to yank
& watch the house open. i don't entertain
the basement's groans. that is for
another level. what i really need
is a home screen. the unspooling
of anthem music around me.
when was the last time 
i felt un-liminal? liminal is
an over-used word when what i really mean
is purgatory. there is 
my religion in me. i need a coin
to light a candle in the cathedral
up the street. i have been waiting
for a new character to approach me.
i fast forward past my neighbor's words--
all of their angular sentences
to get to the point. this man
wants to know where i'm from.
this woman wants to make me 
a fairy house to sleep in. this man
wants to carry me to his bed
& make a blurred graphic of me.
where is the rock rolling to
& who will pick it up when it lands?
i want a new square moon. i want
a bridge over every asphalt.
july rattles & finds a staircase
to trip down. i find
a remote controller in the bathtub.
unplug it from the wall.
whole house does dark
so i plug it back in. yes
this is how it is right now. 
god makes me jump
but my fingers don't graze the ceiling.
a neighbor stands on the porch
waiting to be clicked on.

a memory of us or the moon's pull

i put a strawberry in my mouth
& it becomes a boat. we sit.
rocky water. moon dunking itself
into the surf:
pitch black night full of holes.
an ocean is always having a grand opening
somewhere near by. whose sand 
is in my living room today?
whose sea shells in my cupboard?
when i met you, you told me 
you could sink ships with just a glance.
i walked on watch & begged you
to peer into me. the bath tube
gets deeper. the faucets bleed easy.
nothing can prevent a face 
from becoming an oar. 
we are sailing the boat. 
you navigate & the stars scurry 
back & forth to confuse us. 
we will likely
never arrive. we might just
run out of shores.
there are only so many salvations left
on this shivering planet. 
the earth is not round 
it is an oak leaf.
have you never looked at the ground
& seen the veins?
i draw a card from the water.
it's death. i draw again it's
the moon & we're pulled 
into a whirlpool. 
underwater you change into 
a boy who i knew years & years ago.
he had huge knuckles 
& a firm grip. he grabs my arm.
neither of us swim
to the surface. 
i spit out the strawberry.
a kitchen window. a mop & a broom.
just me soaking wet. dripping
on the tile floor. salt water.
a scarf of sea weed.
the moon knocks on the glass
& asks if i'm going to eat my fruit.
i wave & tell it i do plan to.
there are no visitors. there is 
no "you." i look
at my hands.